Philosophy
Philosophy
After the great system of Aristotle and Plato, and Socrates, it was the right time for a new movement of doubt period. This function was filled by skeptics, and this school’s common thought is that there is no way we can know the nature of things. Stoic philosophy’s goal is to find ethics’ rational basis. This begins with logic, which is the science of discourses and thoughts. The logic of stoic entailed grammar hence it is worth noting that the traditional science of grammar was founded by stoic. Logic’s dialectical part deals with the theory of knowledge which entails two problems (Malherbe, Balch, Ferguson, & Meeks, 1990). That is; what is knowledge’s criterion and what is knowledge’s origin. Considerable attention to the formal logic was given by stoic, especially the syllogism which was regarded as its most crucial phase. Minor additions were made to the scheme of syllogism by Aristotle and revision made to his table of categories (Malherbe, Balch, Ferguson, & Meeks, 1990).
The ethics of Epicurean is Hedonism, meaning that they are mainly based on pleasure but not a debaucheries basis. There are some pleasures that are accompanied by pains while many others are accompanied by pleasure. Thus, there should be no avoidance of all pains nor selection of all pleasures. Generally, it is worth noting that Epicureanism is self-interest’s enlightened ethics, and Epicurus extolled similar virtues as Aristotle and Plato did. The Neoplatonism was regarded to have been founded between 204 to 169 BCE (Malherbe, Balch, Ferguson, & Meeks, 1990). The system of Plato is the framework for a religious international view according to this theory. Plotinus is the main figure in this theory is Plotinus and his philosophy is summarized as; God provides everything; human being’s stages are pure mind, matter and soul; the soul of human is part of the world soul and the freedom of it entail turning away from sensuality to higher nature of it (Malherbe, Balch, Ferguson, & Meeks, 1990). Basically, the common thing to all these theosophies or theologies is God’s dualism, world of denial and asceticism, the belief in intermediary beings including angels and demons as well as the concept of God being a transcendent being (Malherbe, Balch, Ferguson, & Meeks, 1990).
References
Malherbe, A. J., Balch, D. L., Ferguson, E., & Meeks, W. A. (1990). Greeks, Romans, and Christians: Essays in honor of Abraham J. Malherbe. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
